


Acceptable Losses

by Whreflections



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe, Angst, Flashbacks, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-27
Updated: 2013-08-28
Packaged: 2017-11-27 02:20:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/656992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whreflections/pseuds/Whreflections
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Thorin's death, Bilbo strikes a deal with a mysterious stranger who promises they'll end up in a world where none who fell in the Battle of Five Armies have to die an early death.  it's worth it, he thinks, to save three lives with one choice, even if the price of that choice is giving up the man he loves forever.  Thorin won't remember him, or the too short five months they had together.  </p><p>It won't be easy to live with, but he's sure, absolutely sure he made the right choice.  At least, he's sure at first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, brief notes are brief cause I have GOT to go to bed. X.X 
> 
> 1\. Rating is for eventual goings on, promise we'll get there.  
> 2\. ...in the spirit of fair warning, this will not be a happy ride, BUT there will be happy moments? I...decline to comment on how it'll all end right now, lol  
> 3\. Hope you guys enjoy! I'm loving this ship so much and I'm super excited about this.

_That love means death,_

_I realized too soon_

_-When Sorrow Sang, Blind Guardian_

Over the last five years, Bilbo had gotten very good at not being seen.  It made him laugh sometimes, in a tired way, because in that respect at least it seemed he was finally becoming something of a burglar.  It added to his repertoire rather nicely; he’d now genuinely both stolen and learned to be quite the little spy. 

Thorin came to the East Boulder Dog Park every Friday, almost like clockwork.  He missed a day here or there, caught up in company business no doubt, but Bilbo never missed a week, even waited as a rule an extra hour on those days he didn’t appear just to make sure he wasn’t late.  He couldn’t afford to miss him, not when it was the best chance he had to watch Thorin uninterrupted from anything like a close distance. 

Thorin came, and he took the bench closest to the gate, and while his coonhound ran he pulled a packet of cigarettes from his jacket pocket and smoked, usually two and no more.  A third signaled a rough day or heavy thoughts while one showed impatience, a rush to get Mica back home before he threw himself back into his work. 

From the other side of the fence, hidden by pines, Bilbo settled onto the soft needles and lit his own cigarette, careful to watch for sparks and tip the ash into an emptied coke bottle.  He smoked a pipe in his apartment, tobacco as well as this world’s approximation of pipe weed, but here at the park the cigarettes gave him a solidarity with Thorin that mattered more than the richness of flavor he sacrificed. 

In another life they’d truly smoked together, Bilbo settled back against Thorin’s chest as they shared a single pipe.  Here, there was chain link and distance and filtered cigarettes, and Bilbo watched Thorin from the shadows.  It was pitiful, beyond a poor approximation, and yet it remained his most sacred moment, an unbreakable appointment that couldn’t quite be called one of life’s joys and yet came closer to it than most everything else. 

When Thorin finished, when he called Mica to him and paused to stroke her ears, Bilbo was usually coming to the end of his last draw of smoke.  He lingered, strained to hear Thorin’s words as his voice softened and dipped low(he never could, not from his distance), waited until the two of them were through the gate. 

Only when he could see no more of them, not even the tip of Mica’s tail, did Bilbo leave, steps softened by needles as he slipped back through the small grove and the shelter of the trees.

 --------

“Just once, I wish you’d watch it with those needles.  Don’t know how many times I’ve told you, when the paint’s drying-“  Bofur reached across the workbench, fingers snagging on the offending pine needle on Bilbo’s sleeve.  It had yet to touch the paint of the fire engine at Bilbo’s elbow, yet with the scathing look he gave it any outsider would’ve thought the paint job somehow already utterly ruined. 

Bilbo sighed, setting down his brush to scrub his fingers across his jeans.  He’d hardly been in the door five minutes.

“Yes, yes, I know, I know, you’ll kick me out and I won’t ever be welcome to help you paint again, is that it?  Because if that’s my punishment-“

“Are you threatening to quit on me, Bilbo Baggins?”

“Weren’t you just threatening to fire me?” 

“I’d do nothing of the sort.  I was, however, about to deny you dinner.  Seems a much more valuable punishment, wouldn’t you agree?” 

“Seems more like cruelty.”  Bilbo muttered under his breath, though he cast Bofur a smile before picking up the carved dolphin he’d just begun to paint.  She was a thing of beauty, like every toy that came from Bofur’s skilled hands. 

When Bilbo first came to this world, he’d known two things- Thorin was alive, somewhere, and Bilbo himself had landed in surprisingly cozy home, utterly alone.  From there he’d gathered information in bits and pieces, everything from the rather quick realization that he was no longer a hobbit(not in body, anyway) to the less useful knowledge that he was in a place called Boulder, in a land he’d never heard of.  It had taken some research to find the others, and he’d never found Gandalf at all.  In the end, he’d decided that somehow, the wizard must not have been included in the deal he’d struck, a fact that sometimes kept him up nights wondering just how dark a decision he might’ve made.  He tried not to dwell on it. 

He’d searched first for his most important goal, and he found him without too much trouble.  Thorin _was_ alive, strong and safe, well off and respected.  He owned a mining company, though he rarely got to go below ground himself.  He ran the corporate office downtown, and Bilbo scanned the news for pictures of him when he could.  A year or so after they’d arrived he’d adopted Mica from a local shelter, a purebred redbone coonhound who’d been found wandering the Flatirons.  He drove a black XTerra, simple despite his wealth, and his lack of socialization and willingness to immerse himself in society kept him a bit of an outcast.  At first, that had made Bilbo smile, a settling conformation that at his core, the man he loved hadn’t changed.  As time passed, he realized just how much harder that made it to keep an eye on him. 

Fili and Kili held jobs with the company and shared a house away from the heart of the city, next door to Balin, the principal of a local elementary school.  Bilbo kept at his searches with dogged determination, scanning newspapers and searching the internet when he came to understand it, and the steady conformation of the company scattered all around him came to settle into his mind like ice on a wound.  They all seemed well, settled, happy even, and for a time he’d done his best to content himself with that. 

It could not last.  There was nothing like the loneliness that came from sudden isolation after immersion in such a life of close companionship, made all the worse by how out of place he felt in this new world.  The others, at least, had the luxury of having the memory of nothing else.  Whether they belonged or not, they could _feel_ that they did.  Bilbo was forever out of place, disjointed even when he sat sipping tea in the library in his own apartment. 

When he’d been almost sure he couldn’t take it, he’d stuffed a printed off address into his pocket and walked the seven blocks to Bofur’s toyshop.  He’d meant to see him only, to satisfy himself with perhaps a ‘hello’ at the most but he’d found himself fighting back tears at the sight of such a dear friend after so many months alone, and that first day he stayed for two hours, talking over the weather and the toys and Bombur’s work as a chef at the Italian place two blocks over. 

Three weeks later, he had a job running the register and stocking the shelves, and he quit his old job at the downtown library.  A month after that, they sat after closing drinking a bottle of wine in the stockroom, a place that smelled of woodchips and paint and the smoke that lingered on both their clothes.  The tiny room with its scents and clutter and Bofur’s presence felt more like home than anything in that new place had yet managed, and he took a chance and told Bofur the truth. 

He told him everything, from the deal to the life that came before it to details about he and Bombur and their cousin, Bifur(who Bofur had yet to even mention) in desperate grasp at believability.  It might have been the details or his desperation or Bofur’s nature or the wine(more like a combination of all of the above, to be honest), but he was, in fact, believed.  He didn’t just have a friend after that, he had someone to bear the knowledge with him.  Little changed outright, but he breathed easier, something loosened about the weight that had dragged heavy on his chest. 

He spent as much time working the shop with Bofur as he could, happy for the company and the distraction.  They sold all sorts of things, modern board games and soft stuffed animals of all kinds, but Bofur’s carvings remained their crown jewels.  He made arks filled with animals, stables with working box stalls for model horses, dollhouses that took the breath of even the parents that came in pick them out for birthdays and Christmases.  He was a master, and though he’d offered more than once to try and teach Bilbo his skills with blade and wood, Bilbo preferred the painting. 

The dolphin in his hands was a recent addition, planned for an ocean display complete with pirates and mermaids and a ship that Bofur had designed but had yet to start on.  For now, there were palm trees, two turtles, an eel, and the dolphin.  She was smooth and flowing, more beautiful in her natural white pine Bilbo thought, but the children almost always seemed to want them in color. 

“How was he today?” 

Bilbo’s grip tightened on his brush, well enough accustomed to Bofur’s questions that he’d long ago learned how to keep himself from twitching. 

“Fine.  Just fine.”  Bilbo cleared his throat, cast around for a detail he could give.  There’d been little out of the ordinary.  He’d smoked his first cigarette, paused to call Mica away from the water’s edge before lighting his second.  He never let her swim once it got cold, but in the summer she came back to him drenched, and from his station in the grove Bilbo could hear Thorin’s grumbles that often gave way to laughter as she shook all over him.  “He ah…”  There was nothing, really, it had all been pitifully ordinary.  The only new information he had didn’t come from the park, might not even be information at all, and yet, he’d carried it like an insistent itch for two days now. 

Bilbo sat the dolphin down gently by her tail to let her back and belly dry, resting poised between tail and nose.  Across the table, he could feel Bofur’s eyes still on him, waiting for him to stumble his way into whatever he wished.  If he grew tired of letting Bilbo speak to him about Thorin, he never showed it, not once. 

“Did you read the paper, yesterday morning?” 

Bofur’s fingers stilled on the block of wood in his hands, head bowing as he dropped his hands to rest against the workbench.  Somehow, Bilbo wasn’t surprised to find he’d only been waiting, unwilling to be the one to bring it up. 

“Aye.  Still, they take a lot from a picture alone, don’t they?  She-“

“He held her hand.  Not just getting out of the cab, he was still…”  One picture it might be, but it had told Bilbo enough.  Her name was Marianne Delian, and she’d walked with Thorin to a company charity event Wednesday night, and on the way down the sidewalk, he’d held her hand.  Thorin had never been overgenerous with gestures of affection; if he gave them, he meant them.  “This was always going to happen, wasn’t it?  I mean, I couldn’t properly expect…”  He was helpless to even finish, unable to give the words life and be forced to hear them.  It was stupid, childish really, because how _could_ he have imagined that here in a world where there was no Erebor to reclaim and no place for him in Thorin’s life that Thorin would not so very easily find another?  Really, the impressive part was that it had taken so long. 

From a cabinet back to his right, Bofur pulled a bottle of Maker’s Mark and two shot glasses.  His chair scraped against the floor as he stood, the thud of his boots heavy as he came around to squeeze Bilbo’s shoulders. 

“Go on and pour for us.  I’ll call Bombur; he’ll have our dinner sent here.” 

\-------

The man came to him the day of Thorin’s funeral.  Down to the day of his own death Bilbo knew he’d remember every detail, every inch of red on the hem of the man’s black robes that seemed to glitter just a little in the candlelight. 

He leaned against Bilbo’s door, fingers wrapped around a silken red cord he toyed with in a way that seemed far more purposeful than absent.  Even as he looked up to question the man the swing of the pendant on its end caught his eye, onyx black, a wolf and then a bird and then a hobbit, shaping as it swung as if it was malleable to the air.  Or, perhaps, the thoughts of the man who held it, flowing freely through the cord as his fingertips danced along its length. 

“Bilbo Baggins.  I have a proposition for you.”  His voice was like smoke over water, smooth and fluid and dark. 

“Who are you?”  There, in the safety of post battle Erebor, he hadn’t belted Sting to his hip like he’d grown so accustomed to on the road.  His eyes flickered to where it rested in the corner, too far to casually pick up, and he shifted on his feet uncertainly instead.  His mind was heavy with enough already; he wasn’t prepared to deal with the sudden mystery of a stranger at his door.  For an instant the symmetry cut him, a flash of Dwalin at Bag End flashing through his mind, but he shoved it aside as quickly as it came. 

“I have no name you’d know, little hobbit, but that doesn’t concern you.  All you need to know is what I can do, and what I can offer you, and that-“  He stepped inside just as Bilbo opened his mouth to protest, swinging the pendant rapidly until the chord wrapped fully around his fingers.  “-is Thorin Oakenshield’s life.  Are you listening now, or shall I leave?” 

The sound of his name in that unfamiliar voice rankled him; he had the sudden irrational desire to hiss that the man didn’t have the right to speak it.  Still, he wasn’t wrong.  With that, he had inescapably captured Bilbo’s attention.  He swallowed hard, his throat at first too tight to navigate the words he needed. 

“Thorin’s dead.  He’s gone, he….”  _He died in my arms, right before my eyes; I know it’s true, I know there’s nothing to be done._   “Look, I wish there was something you could do, something anyone could do, you have no idea how-“

“Are you going to listen to me or aren’t you?”  He shook the head of his robes back around his shoulders to reveal a face framed by dark hair, holding equally dark eyes.  The smile that played across his lips wasn’t quite mocking but he tested Bilbo nonetheless, letting the silence stretch before nodding, pleased.  “Very well.  You’re quite right; Thorin’s dead.  From the moment he chose to come to the Lonely Mountain that was his fate, and I regret to say, once some courses are taken, fate along that course becomes inescapable.  _However_. “  He leaned forward, fingers drumming against the closed fist of his right hand around his cord as he stared Bilbo down.  “Every course has its own fate.  Thorin Oakenshield presents a particular problem because he is noble to a fault, stubborn as a mule.  I could take you back to Bag End and you could try a thousand times but you would never convince him not to come to Erebor.  Even so, all is not lost.  There are a thousand lives you each may have had elsewhere, Bilbo Baggins, and if I take you to one of them, if I take _all_ of you, then I can promise you a life where Thorin is taken only by old age.  And the young ones as well.” 

The mention of Fili and Kili staggered him, all of the grief still too heavy to properly bear.  The night before he’d seen their bodies when he closed his eyes, still covered in blood in his mind despite the care he and the others had taken to wipe them clean.  From what he heard, Thorin had seen them fall, had to be helpless to do more than watch as the boys he loved like his own died in his defense.  Bilbo woke from the nightmare shaking, cheeks wet, torn between his own ache for his friends and the pain he felt in sympathy for the man he loved.  If he could have borne that memory for Thorin, taken it out of his mind so he never had to see, he’d have gladly done it. 

He scrubbed a hand over his eyes, struggled to wipe his mind clean so he could focus.  “You…you’re saying you could…”  It seemed beyond imagining, beyond possibility.  Bilbo shook his head, tried to find stability in meeting the man’s eyes.  “Look, I may not know who you are, but I know what Gandalf told me about the other wizards and you-“

“Ah but of course he couldn’t have told you; he has never met the likes of me.  I’m not a wizard as he would call it, nor would I necessarily use that word to describe what I can do.  I deal with layers, with dimensions…”  He waved a hand through the air, dismissive.  “But you need not understand.  Think of me as a landlord, filling empty spaces.  There is room for you elsewhere, if you will take it. An offer of a different life.  In return, I’ll fill your space here.  Others will fight for the Lonely Mountain, Bilbo; it need not be you and your friends.  Fate changes, the world changes, and in another world, you move on.  You could not ask for a better deal.” 

It was all too much, swirling, heady knowledge, and he latched onto one piece at a time.  “Think of you as a landlord?  What’s your price, then?  If a man’s seeking to rent a room he’s not doing it out of the goodness of his heart.” 

His laughter was almost melodic, just a little too sharp, and he smiled as he settled back into his chair, one arm slung over the top.  “Smart boy.”

“It’s a simple observation.”

“You’d be surprised how many don’t ask about the price until they’ve paid it.”  A fact this stranger seemed to enjoy, for his smile widened just a bit.  “You’re right, Mr. Baggins; there’s always something in it for me.  My kind feeds off the energy of siphoned emotions; we have for centuries.  We shift players on a thousand boards and in turn those we move give us all we need to continue.  Symbiosis; it’s harmless.  However, it does mean that with every move we make we must ask-“

“Spit it out; what do you want?  You want me, is that it?  I make the choice and they go on without me?”  In all honesty, that didn’t sound so bad. 

“Not hardly.  You are the center of the shift, the focus; you are vital.  You alone will know it’s occurred at all.  No, the price I ask comes from the very drive behind your decision-a decision I know you’ll make, I might add, otherwise I never would have bothered to come.”  He rose from the chair, something cat like in his stalk across the floor that froze Bilbo cold.  “You love the dwarven king enough that you’d have forsaken your home for him had he lived, enough to blind you to all else, enough to choose a course that spares his life even if it means on pain of returning here, to this moment, he can never again love you.”

That, he had not expected. 

“He was destined to, from the moment he entered your house, but all of it will be erased, all of that will be my payment.  You may see him if you like, watch him, speak to him if you must, but at all times you must remember what I told you about fate: once set in motion, it is inescapable.  If you let him get too close, if he takes too much notice of you, your chance is over, and you’ll be sent right back.  That is my price.  Do you accept these terms?” 

Bilbo’s head was swimming, swept too far ahead into that potential future by the thought of Thorin alive and whole only to be whipped back by memory to a moment when Thorin’s fingers closed around his on Sting’s hilt, adjusting his grip.  He’d been losing his temper, frustrated with Bilbo’s inexperience to the point that Bilbo had been on the verge of giving up and sheathing his sword when Thorin grabbed his hand.

_Please, you must learn this.  You must do this for me._

It wasn’t until days later he had the full truth of it, talking softly as they passed a pipe between them.  In smoke and moonlight, Thorin spoke to him sometimes with the kind of bare honesty he rarely allowed himself to offer up. 

_When we came to you, I told Gandalf I couldn’t ensure your safety.  I couldn’t know it then, but it’s a truth that’s come to rest heavier on my mind than I ever expected.  You cannot doubt that I would never wish for you to be anywhere but with us-not now, but all the same when I remember what we face, I can’t help but think a better man would never have brought you along at all.  I do my best, but I may not always be there to protect you, Bilbo.  I can’t promise you that, though I wish I could.  If the time comes that I cannot, I need to know you can protect yourself._

He’d been so worried about that, ever since the aftermath of their encounter with Azog, ever since the eagles.  He did all he could to protect Bilbo, hovering and watching and guarding and at first, Bilbo thought it was only that Thorin felt he owed him a debt.  It wasn’t until he said as much that he’d had his answer, stumbled words that led Bilbo to take a chance and reach out and….

And all of it, every moment since his fingers had brushed Thorin’s cheek under the shadow of pines would be wiped away.  The very thought burned him, less like fire and more like acid and yet, that was a visceral reaction, emotional and poorly rooted.  What did it matter, now, if it was erased?  He was the only one left to remember, and his memories he’d be permitted to keep.  Did the dead have memories at all?  Did it count as taking a man’s memories when there was no man left to take them from? 

“Your answer, Mr. Baggins.” 

Bilbo tried to wave him off, breath quickening as he glanced back toward the door.  He should go, he should get Gandalf, should know for certain if this magic of his was safe, but what if the man was gone when he came back?  What if this _was_ a chance, a chance presented only to him and he squandered it? 

He could hear his heart pounding in his ears, his thoughts a mess of memory and argument and justification. 

“Bilbo-“

“Yes.  Yes, alright, yes, if it saves his life-“

He never even got to finish his sentence before he was swept away.  After, when he thought about it, he knew that just as the man intended, he chose rashly, under pressure, driven by fear and grief and desire.  Still, he consoled himself by thinking that given hours, given counsel with Gandalf and the chance to sit alone and muse, one fact alone would have driven him to the same conclusion:

Thorin never fought for the sake of his own life, for his own protection.  The times when Bilbo could look out for him were few and far between, and at his last attempt, he’d failed miserably.  If he could save Thorin’s life, whatever the personal cost, how could he do anything less? 

\--------

It was hard, so very hard to hold onto a truth of which no evidence remained outside your own mind.  It wasn’t that Bilbo ever doubted Thorin, not really, wasn’t even that he ever doubted the past he was wholly certain he remembered.  It was simpler and yet almost worse than that, a loss of details, every minute facet of a life he wanted so desperately to cling to. 

He’d spent five years living in a world removed, a span already longer than the time he and Thorin had shared.  They had, altogether, known each other for seven months.  Five of those in particular had been the absolute best of Bilbo’s life, rocky ground and wounds and all.  Laying it out like that, it seemed so short a time.  To think that they’d had five months only to be together, less than half a year... 

At the time, it had seemed so much longer, and at the time, he’d been sure it never had to end.  No matter what the road had already taught him about hardship, no matter what answer he’d have given if any one of the others had asked him, Bilbo had never truly been prepared for the possibility of Thorin’s death.  Thorin had seemed invincible in his eyes, a truth that endured even after Bilbo saw him lying limp at Azog’s feet.  When he did lose him, he didn’t even have the time for the loss to properly sink in.  Not to mention that just before it they’d fought in a way that felt so final even as he hoped it wouldn’t be, and even though they’d been reunited in the end that former discord between them had remained its own horrible weight.  

The aftermath had been dizzying, and it wasn’t until he came out of it that the truth of his new circumstances really came clear.  He was young, for a hobbit, fairly young for a human now that he was one.  He had years left yet, quite a few of them in all likelihood, and everything he wanted was bound up behind him, in five months that he alone in the whole of existence remembered.  The emptiness of it cut him, but not in the way the world tried to tell him it might.  In the estimation of many, it’d have been long time he moved on, but he knew better than that.  What they’d had hadn’t been that simple, not by a long shot.  He’d heard it before and never properly understood, but he’d found himself overwhelmed by an old truth:  He’d had the kind of love that made the world pale in comparison and after that, nothing else would ever do.    

The most valuable possessions he had left were his memories, and he guarded them as jealously as he could, ran over them again and again in the dark as he smoked his pipe by a window that looked out over the city.  He could only hope that if he kept them close enough, they’d never start to slip away.  So far, it had worked.  He still had his details, could still remember how Thorin had smelled like leather and pine and pipe smoke and dirt.  He’d breathed it in deep so many times, wrapped tight in Thorin’s arms, his head nestled between fur cloak and the warmth of Thorin’s neck.  When Thorin hugged him before that first glimpse of Erebor, he’d thought himself lucky to have that embrace once, just once.  The heat in his spine after had left him wobbly, and all that night as he slipped in and out of sleep he couldn’t help but remember that he’d never felt so safe in all his life as he had for those few seconds. 

It wasn’t until days later that he’d begun to realize if he dared, he just might be able to find himself in those arms again. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bilbo told himself he'd have to adjust to life without Thorin but somehow, he never thought quite as much about Thorin adjusting to life without him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks everyone so much for the kudos and bookmarks and comments, they make me so happy, <3 
> 
> With this chapter, it starts off with a flashback to before, one of Bilbo's memories. We'll get those occasionally from here on out, but I just wanted to mention that to make sure it's not confusing or anything. ^^ anyway, hope you guys enjoy it!

_A kiss may ruin a human life._

_-Oscar Wilde_

_Bilbo couldn’t have pinpointed the sound, wasn’t sure if it was the snap of a twig or just the out of place crunch or skitter of a leaf across the ground, but he turned with Sting already drawn.  The blade remained unlit, leaving him to peer into the darkness of the trees without any aid.  At least, though, his heart beat just a little slower.  There were no orcs, no goblins, just a rabbit, perhaps, or-_

_Or Thorin.  Bilbo’s breath left his lungs in a rush, something of a huff of frustration to the sound as he sheathed his sword.  Coming toward him from under the trees, Thorin’s voice easily carried._

_“Your instincts are improving.”_

_“You followed me.”_

_He wasn’t sure whether he’d meant for the words to carry reproach or curiosity, was hardly even sure how it’d sound to other ears but his own.  He’d felt Thorin’s eyes on him often enough since their journey began, that much was true, but before, it had only served to make him uneasy, like a child under the watchful eye of a schoolmaster.  After the respect he seemed to have earned after the incident with Azog Bilbo had thought those tracking eyes might ease up, but if anything Thorin seemed to have been watching him more closely than ever.  Just two nights before he’d stayed up along with Bilbo(who’d finally been granted his own spot on the watch) when he certainly didn’t have to and he’d sat next to him at the fire only the evening before and offered to show him how to care for Sting properly and suddenly there he was again, trailing back while Bilbo gathered firewood._

_He’d had plenty of time to think on it during his long day of travel, and try as he might to find a reason his mind could unquestioningly accept, he couldn’t.  Either he was a liability or an obligation or…or Thorin wanted the contact for its sake alone.  That, Bilbo couldn’t let himself hope._

_“This is still dangerous country, the wargs-“_

_“I’d hear them, in enough time to get back to camp at least, wouldn’t I?  I mean, I’ve gotten used to-“  He waved his hand, less articulate as he remembered all too well the sorts of sounds wargs made.  He knew them now, snarls and howls and horrible clawing, ripping noises as they made furrows in the dirt and sliced through the bark of trees.  “And besides, I’ve got Sting.  If I run into danger, I’ll be ready for it.”  Ready to get out of its way until he was back to the safety in numbers that came from the camp, at least.  Or, so he hoped.  “Look, I’m not saying I’m cut out to be a scout or anything, but gathering firewood’s fairly straightforward.  I think that much I can accomplish.”_

_“I do not mean to suggest you couldn’t, but if you had come upon trouble, you would be alone, easily cut off from the company.  You should know, I do not doubt your courage, but skill is learned.  These things take time.  I followed you to ensure your safety; the woods are trouble outside the range of the camp.”_

_Under the cover of the pines, Thorin’s face was harder to read.  Bilbo could see him only by the faded moonlight that filtered down through the branches, all proper light from the fire starting back in camp too distant to be of help.  He’d stay close enough that he could still hear their voices as a background murmur, almost white noise, though the minute Thorin had spoken he’d had trouble holding onto the sound of anything else.  Even quiet, his voice carried the weight of command, the weight of a king.  Still, again there was a difference._

_When Thorin had singled him out before that voice had been harsh and clipped, heavy with disapproval.  Lately there was a gentleness to his gruff words Bilbo was at a loss to understand, something in his eyes when he passed Bilbo a skin of water that he recognized from the gaze he’d seen fall on Thorin’s nephews.  There was worry and affection and when he was alone(as alone as he ever got these days, wrapped up in his bedroll), he had to admit to himself just what it did to him to see Thorin’s face even a little softer in his direction, to sit beside him and watch his hands move over Bilbo’s sword with a skill unsurpassed by any man Bilbo had ever seen.  It was nearly impossible to turn away, even more so once he’d admitted to himself he recognized his own fascination.  He’d certainly felt desire before and he’d once fallen in love (with a young hobbit girl named Hildie Grubb, who’d ended up loving another), and he was sure he knew the feeling of both and yet in watching Thorin, the shock of wanting threatened to overwhelm his senses._

_At the brush of Thorin’s shoulder against his own he could feel the sudden progression up his spine of something far too like heat lightning, crackles shuddering out to his fingertips when he realized that though he shifted away, he could still feel the burn of where they’d touched.  He was breathtaking, and the closer they came to each other, the more Bilbo could see it.  Thorin had a beautiful grandeur to him from across a fire, but there was nothing like seeing him up close, being right there beside him to properly see the flecks of silver in his beard, to watch firelight dance in eyes so blue they reminded Bilbo that he’d never seen a proper sapphire, not ever, but that **must** be what one would look like-so full of light and color it brought a mesmerizing clench of welcome pain to any who dared to look. _

_He knew how he felt, regrettably he knew it too deeply to doubt, but it was for that very reason that he wished Thorin wouldn’t shadow him so heavily , for he knew other things, too.  He travelled not merely with a dwarf whose trust he could strive to earn, but with an exiled king.  A **dwarf** king no less, and while he’d come to know more of dwarves on this journey, he still knew pitifully little.  He could hardly let himself be foolish enough to think he had a chance.  Even if, **if** his people would accept their lord binding himself to a man, it certainly wouldn’t be a simple hobbit from the Shire.  He had no titles of his own, no great deeds to his name, nothing to offer and he knew it.  Sometimes, knowledge was a horrible, horrible thing. _

_Bilbo raked his fingers through his hair, took a few steps toward Thorin to bring them closer.  Under the circumstances, a better look at his face while they talked gave him enough justification, didn’t it?  Whether it did or not, the excuse quieted the small squawk in his head that warned him back, tried to force him to keep his distance._

_“Look, I…what I did…” **I’d do it again, a thousand times over.  It wasn’t anything special, not like you think, I just couldn’t watch you die.  Bit selfish of me, really; could’ve gone pretty badly but I didn’t care.**   “You don’t owe me anything.”  It hurt to say it, not because it lacked truth but because if he was right, if Thorin had come closer to him out of some kind of culturally based bond over Bilbo coming to his aid, then convincing him of just how even they were might be enough to bring things back to something like normal.  It was everything he wanted, and everything he didn’t. _

_Across from him, Thorin’s brow creased with disagreement.  “You risked your life to come to me.  For that, I owe you a great deal.”_

_“And I wouldn’t have even been there to do anything at all if you hadn’t saved me from those trolls, or pulled me up off the side of the mountain.”_

_“You-“_

_“Look, I could go back even further; I doubt I’d have made it two days on the road without you, any of you.  Everyone here has done their share of saving; I’m not special, I just…I couldn’t watch.  That’s all.  I couldn’t stand there and let-“  Gods, he couldn’t even say it.  “I didn’t have a choice.”_

_Thorin shook his head, a breath that came closer than Bilbo’d ever heard to a laugh slipping from his chest as he did.  His gaze traced Bilbo’s face, searching, and when he shook his head incredulously again it was plain he hadn’t found what he sought._

_“That you think you had no choice only serves to show how deeply I misjudged you.  Everyone has a choice, in battle more than almost anywhere else.  There are not many warriors who would have left the potential for safety to run into almost certain death.”  The rest was unspoken, this time, but there all the same.  Bilbo was no warrior, no soldier.  Privately, Bilbo felt that had only helped him that night.  He’d known he had to go to Thorin’s aid, and he’d known his ability to be of any real danger to Azog was nothing to put faith in, not even his own.  What he lacked in preparation he’d tried to make up for with surprise._

_“Wasn’t as hard as you make it sound.  It was an easy choice, honestly, but still, you don’t have to, to follow me like this.  You don’t have to worry about me; I’ll be alright.”_

_“And as I said, you didn’t have to come after me either, but you made that decision, just as you chose to stay with us when you could’ve turned back.  Is it so wrong of me to intend that you reach Erebor in one piece?”  His voice rose just a little with frustration, not enough for anger but enough that before he could stop himself, Bilbo had reached out and snagged his fingers on Thorin’s sleeve.  He froze, for a second terrified he’d overstepped but there **had** been a barrier broken when Thorin hugged him on the rocks that day, that much he knew for certain.  If he wanted to draw away, Thorin showed no sign of it.  He remained still, his only response a subtle settling of the tempo of his breath. _

_Though his fingers touched only fabric, Bilbo would’ve sworn he could feel a hum in them, a bone deep resonance.  The air between them seemed suddenly thick, heavy as honey; if he’d hoped to diffuse the tension between them, he’d failed._

_“No, no of course not, I didn’t mean…I didn’t mean that.”  He couldn’t look up, couldn’t possibly meet Thorin’s eyes when his mouth felt so dry, his skin so tight.  The back of his mind flitted full of words, poetry and prose from his beloved books and he couldn’t help but think, he’d certainly never gone mad but he could only imagine this was something of how it felt.  So many had written it, that love was madness, but he himself had never quite believed it.  Perhaps, it was a truth that had to be experienced firsthand or not known at all.  “I appreciate it, I do; I do my best but I know I’m not cut out for this life- you were right about that much.  Still,-“_

_“It suits you far better than you believe, hobbit.”  And how was it, **how** did the word that had sounded so like a curse when they met now ring with fondness?    It was enough to draw Bilbo’s gaze away from where his fingers clutched Thorin’s sleeve, his breath catching in his chest.  Somehow, he stood closer than he thought.  Thorin seemed to tower over him, not so much taller but enough to matter, enough to make Bilbo feel small and yet, the difference no longer seemed intimidating.  A strange thing, as before when it had, it had been less marked, glimpsed from a distance, from watching the line of Thorin’s back as he rode his pony at the head of the line. _

_Those sapphire eyes were locked on Bilbo, pupils wide and dark in the low light.  They were full of honesty, truth and affection and intensity that led Bilbo to remind himself that he did, in fact, have to breathe, to look away because he couldn’t just stare, could he?_

_“Thorin.”  It was a statement unto itself, a prelude to nothing because he could get no farther.  He couldn’t make himself stop staring, couldn’t bring himself to break a contact Thorin hadn’t pulled away from.  Bilbo’s heart was hammering in his chest and he could hear **nothing** else, not the forest or the distant voices or even Thorin’s breath and in that frozen moment, he managed to do what he was occasionally, spontaneously good at.  He took a chance. _

_He reached out with his free hand, fingertips tentative against Thorin’s cheek.  The caress was as light as a nervous jay on a branch, ready to jerk back at the slightest hint it was unwelcome.  Instead, Thorin turned into his touch.  It wasn’t much, hardly more than a twitch but it was there, the slight pressure of the movement real against his skin, and it was all the encouragement Bilbo needed to do it properly, the pad of his thumb rubbing gently against the scratch of Thorin’s beard.  It felt incredible, rough and just right as the hair prickled against his skin.  Thorin’s lips parted on a sharp intake of breath as his already dark eyes seemed to dip a shade deeper.  Bilbo had a moment of perfect stillness, a moment to let his mind reel at the shock that he hadn’t been pushed away before all of sudden he **was** being moved, though the arms that had suddenly gripped him to push him back didn’t let go. _

_Thorin moved right with him, half supporting Bilbo when he stumbled a bit over the roots of the oak tree he suddenly found his back being pressed against.  The old bark crunched and his right foot was jammed into the root structure at an incredibly uncomfortable angle, but all in all Bilbo had maybe a half second to care.  Before he could so much as draw a full breath, Thorin’s hand was at the back of his neck tipping his head back, and then their lips were together and for all Bilbo noticed, his foot could’ve been missing entirely._

_His lips parted for Thorin before the dwarf even asked it, though he certainly didn’t hesitate to take the invitation.  Bilbo had kissed before, of course he had, but none of that old experience had left him prepared.  He’d kissed girls, kissed women, kissed another boy one in his youth but none of that was anything like kissing a man and even if he’d ever done that much, he still doubted it would’ve had him ready to be kissed by Thorin._

_His tongue was hot and eager, but not in the way that an uncertain youth was eager.  No, he tasted Bilbo with deliberation, twined their tongues together in a way that made lust coil tight in Bilbo’s belly before retreating a bit, tracing Bilbo’s lower lip as he tugged it between his teeth.  Bilbo gasped for breath, half felt he was really gasping for the taste of Thorin, though he didn’t have long to wait.  His grip tightened on the back of Bilbo’s neck, held his head back to let himself in even deeper.  He pressed Bilbo to the tree, trapped tight, and never in his life had Bilbo felt so very aware of his size.  Thorin was all around him, leaning over him and caging him in as they kissed, and though Bilbo might should have felt uneasy about that, he only wanted to pull him in tighter._

_Thorin pulled away from his lips only to nuzzle against Bilbo’s jaw, panting in hot bursts against his exposed neck.  Between the scratch of his beard at the underside of Bilbo’s throat and the taste of Thorin still on his tongue he felt shaky and drugged, weak on his feet.  He clutched at the thick fur on Thorin’s shoulders, moaning as he tried to arch just a little away from the tree and into Thorin, to bare just a little more of his neck to the feel of Thorin’s beard and heavy breath.  Thorin shuddered at the sound; Bilbo could feel the tremor in his shoulders, and for a moment he was sure the sound would be enough to bring Thorin’s lips back to his._

_Instead, he drew back.  The night air felt suddenly colder in the absence of breath so close to his skin, and Bilbo couldn’t help a shiver of his own as Thorin leaned over him with arm over Bilbo’s head against the bark of the tree, still out of breath._

_“Forgive me.  I never should have-“_

_“ **Forgive** you?  D’you think that’s the response you’d get if I needed an apology?”_

_“Whether you need one or not, there is no excuse for-“_

_“Bilbo!  Where’ve you got off to?”  At the sound of Fili’s voice, Thorin was away from him in an instant, tugging his slightly crooked robes into more proper array.  Bilbo shuffled away from the oak, again nearly stumbling on the roots though this time, the fault lay not in them but in his shaky legs.  His mind might be a jumble, but the rest of him was very clear on exactly what it wanted, but as melting under Thorin no longer seemed an option, his muscles were going to have to start to behave._

_Thorin shot Bilbo an appraising glance, only turning away when Bilbo managed a nod after scrubbing a hand through the mess that was his curls.  They couldn’t really look too much more disheveled, could they?  He hadn’t had a proper bath in days._

_“Our burglar is just fine, Fili.  Go back to the others; I’ll join you.  I just came to check on him myself.”_

_Before he could protest, before he could even begin to point out they hadn’t  hardly finished their conversation, Thorin turned on his heel and headed back toward the dull orange glow of camp._

\--------

Bilbo had never been a hobbit to make particularly bad decisions.  Well…he supposed that depended on who you asked.  Any of his neighbors would’ve sworn leaving to go on an adventure was a horrible idea if ever they’d heard one, not to mention what his family’d probably said once they found out he was gone.  As a boy he hadn’t been much better, had in fact been quite the scandal more often than not with his wild ideas and games that took him and any friends brave enough to play with him to a hundred imagined kingdoms, alien and mysterious and full of wonder. 

Still, as a proper adult he’d mostly been respectable.  He kept a nice house, was friendly with his neighbors, gave help when he could to those who needed it, and he kept himself from being the subject of anyone’s gossip.  In a place like The Shire that could take some doing, as it didn’t take much of a ‘scandal’ to the get everyone down at the Green Dragon talking over your life like they knew every inch of it(because mostly, they did.  The Shire wasn’t a place for keeping secrets, not unless you buried them deep.).  He’d had a couple of brief relationships and a handful of other dates or dance partners that sort of became dates, but if anything his lack of a love life had more potential to draw comment than anything he’d actually done. 

It seemed, in this world, so much of The Shire really had been left behind. 

Bilbo leaned against the door to Bofur’s and Bombur’s house, his hand resting on the rough grain of the wood only a moment before he gathered the energy to actually knock.  It didn’t take him long to come to the door, though in the time it took Bilbo had already rested his throbbing head against the doorframe, his eyes aching to shut.  He’d become more familiar with hangovers than he ever anticipated being before he met Bofur, but his head had never felt quite so heavy, his throat never quite so dry.  (He wondered, though, if half of that was his imagination.  He’d also never gotten drunk alone, never woken up hungover anywhere but his own bed once or twice as a youth or, more recently, on Bofur’s floor.) 

When the door opened, Bilbo croaked out the words he’d planned to say on the taxi ride over. 

“I did a stupid thing.” 

“I can see that.”  His eyebrows rose just slightly, eyes raking across Bilbo’s unsteady frame once before reaching out for his shoulder to lead him in.  “Come with me, then.  Sit down, tell me everything.” 

He walked slow, thank the gods, keeping pace with Bilbo and leading him up stairs and down a hall he should’ve known like the back of his hand.  There were chairs by the fireplace, but the unmade bed looked too inviting, and Bilbo gravitated irresistibly toward it, settling down carefully once he reached the edge.  The less he moved the better.  He knew where he probably _should_ start, but even though he’d come over here for that very purpose he felt suddenly less sure of talking.  Bofur’s sheets were cozy, still nice and warm and Bilbo buried his face underneath the quilt, hiding his eyes from the light spilling around the slats of Bofur’s shades. 

“Out with it.  I know you can still talk.”  The bed dipped with Bofur’s weight, and the unforgiving poke against his shoulder felt like the bowl of a pipe.  That suspicious was confirmed as he heard the strike of a match, and he groaned in advance at the thought of what the smell of smoke might inspire in his stomach.  With an only slightly exasperated sigh, Bofur blew out the match.  “You know when I first met you, here, you were a wreck, but that was different.  Of all things I’d worry about you doing, ending up this drunk isn’t one of them, but-“

“Look I know it’s not like me, I know that, why d’you think I said I did a stupid thing?”  The sooner he got this out the better.  It’d be said and done with, and maybe he wouldn’t feel the weight of it pressing on his throat quite so hard.  Bilbo sat up with a wince, still slow and careful as he folded himself to rest back against a pillow propped up against the headboard.  Bofur sat diagonally across from him, legs folded as he leaned back against one of the posts at the foot of the bed.  He was dressed already, old jeans and a faded Yellowstone shirt, but even so Bilbo felt fairly sure it was the call he’d made in the taxi that had woken him.  He’d owe him something, for this, even if Bofur never would’ve felt that way himself. 

Bilbo buried his face in his hands, rubbing at his eyes and trying his best to clear the fuzziness from his head.  Pain he could deal with, but he hated the muzzy feeling that seemed to coat everything, like extra weight drawing him down toward the floor.  

“I saw them on the news, last night.  Her and Thorin.”  Wrong of him or not, he couldn’t say her name.  “They’re all talking about her, how her father’s big in oil down in Texas and she’s the perfect match not just for him but for the company, how it could mean financial benefit for them both if the two of them worked together.  They talk about her like she’s already married him, like it’s done or at the very least that they’re already engaged and that was bad enough but they had pictures, new ones pulled from the event and gods only know where else; the vultures, they grab everything they can and hold onto it till it’s of value.”  He took a deep breath, a brief interruption to the babbling only because the next bit had to come out quick or not at all.  “They were out on a balcony, must have been the night of the party because she was cold and he’d put his coat around her, had her next to him and I couldn’t…”  He choked, shut his eyes for a deep breath or two because it certainly wasn’t the best time for choking.  “I couldn’t look anymore.” 

Even more so because it wasn’t just the coat, wasn’t just the arm around her shoulders or the way Thorin’s head was turned, lips obviously pressed to her forehead.  It was the whole image it made together, a perfect snapshot of Thorin holding tight to something he treasured.  His possessive streak was easy to recognize; Bilbo had felt it.  He’d been on the receiving end of the tight grip of those arms, knew what it felt like to have a heavy fur cloak draped about his shoulders with a gruff whisper of _wear it; you’ll catch your death with bare feet in this weather_. 

Bilbo wasn’t sure if it was learned behavior or if he’d had it all along, but he’d certainly ended up with more than a little of his own kind of fierce possession.  That was _his_ , all of it, Thorin and the comfort of his arms and his private moments of tenderness.  Once, all of it had been his and no other’s, not ever, Thorin had told him so.   He’d come to terms with never having it again for himself but somehow, it had never occurred to him that someone else might. 

Bilbo drew the quilt just a little tighter around him, fingers tight on the fraying edges. 

“So I ah, I went out.  There’s a bar not far from the apartment and I had a couple drinks, not much; I wasn’t drunk then.  Met a man, we started talking and-“

“For the love of God, Bilbo, tell me you didn’t.”  More than shock(though there was that) there was enough worry in his voice to draw Bilbo’s eyes up to his, for a moment rattling his thoughts with a memory of another time he’d almost done a stupid thing, a night when he’d tried to pack up and leave and Bofur had done his best to try and make him stay. 

Bilbo shook his head, swallowed hard against the burn in his throat that only seemed to be increasing. 

“No.  I didn’t.  But I thought I wanted to.”  He’d tried to tell himself it’d be good for him to have someone else, to burn new memories into his mind that might at least distract him from the old ones because while he’d never wanted to lose them, in those moments they seemed horribly like a burden.  “Eventually I figured out I didn’t, went home by myself; the drinking happened after that.”  The only drinking he counted, at least.  The two at the bar had been nothing, no more than enough to get something in his veins before he found who he was looking for. 

He scanned faces for a while before he found one that might do, a tall redhead with a beard a little bigger than Thorin’s.  He wanted something of familiarity, but not too much.  He _was_ different, fingers long and not as thick and strong, his chest more narrow, his beard just a little thicker against Bilbo’s chin.  Still, neither the differences or the similarities seemed to help.  His taste was foreign on Bilbo’s tongue, and his fingers felt out of place as they curled over Bilbo’s ribs.  He towered over him enough, had Bilbo’s neck craning up to meet him but it had all felt wrong in a way he couldn’t shake.  His mind provided him with flashes of other hands, desperate kisses, Thorin’s murmured words against the back of his neck as he took Bilbo from behind.  When his mind latched onto the way Thorin might have looked at him if he’d ever seen him in the arms of another, he finally had to pull away and admit defeat. 

Thorin might could move on, without his memories.  Still carrying them, Bilbo knew for certain now he never could. 

“I said something to you once, long time ago now, and I told you that’d be the end of it.  But now I think it bears repeating, so I’ll tell you again.”  Across from him, Bofur leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees.  “And maybe this time, this’ll be the last I speak of it, because you were right, before.  I don’t know everything you know; I can’t.  All of that falls on you, Bilbo.”  Bilbo shut his eyes, certain he knew what was coming and equally certain Bofur had picked a good day to bring it back up; he wasn’t sure he had the strength to argue.  “The decision you made; it’s an awful big one to make for someone else.” 

“I did it to save his life; I saved his _nephews_.  You really think he wouldn’t want that, that he’d rather they died young on that horrible battlefield?  You can’t imagine-“

“No, I can’t!  I’m not trying to, I’m only saying, I doubt very much he’d have changed his mind about the quest even had he known how it would end; not from what you’ve told me.  For that matter, I doubt the others would have, either.”  His voice dropped lower, softening a little with sympathy.  “Everything has a price, lad.  I’m sure the day they followed him out the door, Thorin knew that.” 

He had, Bilbo had seen that much.  Thorin watched them like a hawk, sometimes snappy and a little harsh but never without love.  Their presence set him on edge, kept him constantly worried for their whereabouts and their safety.  He’d known full well he might lose them, and it terrified him, even on the days they made him so very proud.  Still, he could have prevented them from coming, and he never had.  He’d told Bilbo once that Erebor was their home as much as his, that they had every right to have a chance to fight for the land that should have been theirs.  He’d let them come because he knew that at their age, he’d have wanted it himself. 

More nauseous than he had been when he came to Bofur, Bilbo swung his legs over the side of the bed and paced to the window.  He was wobbly and sick, terribly dizzy now that he was on his feet, but he didn’t stop until he raised the shades and came to rest against the window, the heel of his palm pressed tight against the wooden frame. 

“Someone else reclaimed Erebor.  That’s what he told me would happen.”  He’d repeated that fact to himself hundreds of times over the years, every time he looked out into the mountains around Boulder and felt a tug on his heart he could never fully explain.  Erebor had never been home to him, not really.  He’d _planned_ for it to be, but he’d never had the chance to settle in, to grow to love it on his own.  He’d come to love it through Thorin’s stories though, through song and memories and maybe that was more than enough.  He knew his reasons, remembered Thorin’s blood on his hands and the agony of loss and even so, sometimes those reasons felt flimsy even to himself. 

“I went to him once when I was sure Azog would tear me apart all because I couldn’t watch him die.  And when I had a chance, I couldn’t bury him, not if I didn’t have to.  What do you want me to say, Bofur?  That I brought this on myself?  Well you’re right; I did.  Maybe I shouldn’t have.  Maybe I was wrong, maybe I should have left all of us right where we were; hell, we’re here because of me regardless because if I hadn’t done what I did with the Arkenstone and driven that wedge between us maybe it would’ve ended different anyway.  However you look at it, it’s my weakness that did this; don’t you think I know that?” 

By the end, his voice was hardly more than a whisper, nails so tight on the wood he could feel splinters digging in underneath them.  Bofur’s hand on his back startled him, a warm and steady pressure even after Bilbo jerked at his touch. 

“I never said you didn’t know it.  Why do you think I told you I’d never bring it up again?  I know you think it more often than you’d ever tell me.  We don’t belong here, Bilbo.  None of us do.  I can’t tell you if the others feel it; I can hardly even tell you for sure that I would’ve if you hadn’t told me but what I _do_ know is it doesn’t matter whether we know it or not.  You do, and watching you try to force yourself somewhere you don’t belong, that’s enough to tell me all I need to know.”

The sun burned Bilbo’s eyes, and he finally drew his hand away from the sill to rub at the corners of them with his sleeve. 

“It’s too late now anyway.  Damage is done.  Most I can do is stay out of his way and be glad he’s alright.” 

“You could do that.  Or you could get a dog.  And don’t you go answering that yet.  Just think about this, and give it some time to settle in your mind- if you’d been the one lying dead on that field, would you have given him up for any damn thing at all?”  Bofur patted his shoulder, slipping away before Bilbo could disobey and start to struggle for a reply.  “Come down when you’re ready.  I’ll make you some toast, think you can handle that?” 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I know it has been forever and I am terrible and you probably all want to kill me, but I swear I just got eaten by a combination of school and attack of Les Mis feels. I'm going to try my best to get back to updating this again like I intended to from the first, x.x 
> 
> I'm so sorry, and I really hope some of you still want to read this and enjoy this chapter, ^^

_You will always fall in love, and it will always be like having your throat cut, just that fast._

_-Catherynne M. Valente_

_The dying firelight left Thorin flecked in gold, and for a moment, Bilbo stopped to smooth his pockets and settle his coat.  He couldn’t bear to put this moment off for another night, but stalling a moment or two just might help him catch his breath.  It had been hard enough before, but then Thorin had kissed him and Bilbo learned the taste of his tongue and the scratch of his beard, felt the steady grip of his hands.  At least before, he’d had an idea of what to do with himself, but that was days ago, and Thorin hadn’t stopped hovering like he had ever since Azog, they hadn’t exactly spoken since.  Not directly at least, not alone._

_Bilbo shuffled his feet the last few steps, crammed his hands into his pockets so hard his knuckles hurt(particularly the right, crammed against that ring that pressed so heavy on his skin)._

_“D’you mind if I-“  Thorin’s head tipped back to look up at him.  Bilbo’s hands convulsed, right in time with the sharp constriction of his throat.  “It’s just, Ori was so tired I-“_

_“As you will.”  His chin jerked toward his left and the empty space by the fire, and though Bilbo could’ve tripped over his feet he was so quick to comply, there was hint of welcome in Thorin’s tone that soothed a measure of his jangling nerves.  If he really hadn’t wanted Bilbo there, surely Thorin was blunt enough to have spoken his mind._

_Once he was settled in cross legged, his arms stretched to warm his fingers at the meager heat from the low flames, he’d successfully completed the hurdle of ‘getting a moment with Thorin’.  Now, he faced the considerably harder prospect of remembering what exactly it was he’d planned to say once he got past that all important first step._

_His mouth hadn’t been so dry since he was a boy, half-sized and standing before his dad with the fishing pole he broke pretending it was a sword.  He swallowed, spread his fingers wide in an attempt to distract himself with the search for heat, and he spoke softly._

_“Why did you apologize?”  So, so softly.  If Thorin wanted to pretend he didn’t hear him, he’d be welcome to._

_Thorin paused in the motion of packing his pipe, though he didn’t look away from it.  “I should never have put you in such a position.  For that, you deserved an apology.”_

_“But it’s not as if I-“  Dammit, how much could he say?  What the hell was there was to risk giving away, anyway?  He’d ended up nearly hanging trembling from Thorin’s shoulders; he still wasn’t sure how on earth anyone could mistake that for uncertainty.  “You did nothing I wouldn’t welcome, and don’t try to tell me you don’t know it.”  Bilbo tucked his hands in against his chest, distracted from the fire’s heat by the way he could feel the tips of his ears begin to heat up with a warmth of their own._

_“That you welcomed a kiss I never should have taken is beside the point.”_

_“So my opinions on you, on…on whatever that was, they’re what, irrelevant?”  In the half second it took for him to snap his gaze right to fully take Thorin in, Bilbo caught the last of a grimace leaving him.  He shook his head once, gave up all efforts with the pipe to fold his hands and properly meet Bilbo’s eyes._

_“I did not mean to belittle you; of course your choices are your own, and they do matter to me.  All I meant, Bilbo-“  The word hung between them, so rarely used off Thorin’s lips that he seemed to be testing the taste of it.  For his part, it had sounded just right to Bilbo’s ears, rough and low and heavy.  “What I would ask of you if did as I willed, I cannot.  For our people in such matters, there is no middle ground.  Either such an encounter means everything or it means nothing, we would never speak of it again.”  His voice dropped, his eyes drawn back to the fire.  “And I cannot fool even myself into thinking I could take such a road with you, not now.  So I must do nothing, and for that, I am sorry.  If I had a viable choice to lay before you-“_

_“Wait, wait, are you-“ **Are you almost proposing, is that what this is?  Because if you are-**_   _No, he couldn’t let himself go there, not quite yet, maybe not ever but certainly not until he knew more._   _He could not dare to hope, not properly.  It was enough that he’d felt the jolt in his stomach, a sharp and pleasant pain.  The minute Thorin mentioned choice, he could not deny to himself that he knew exactly what his answer would be.  And yet…_

_“Everything or nothing.  So you…you never date, you never…”  Gods, he probably sounded ridiculous, but the concept was just so foreign.  In the world he came from, there was courting and dances and wagon rides, walks along the Brandywine and picnics on grassy hills.  Not that his mind could place Thorin in any of those scenarios exactly, not readily at least.   He would perhaps have walked the Brandywine if Bilbo asked him, his eyes on the riverstone rather than the play of light on the surface of the water, the little boats of leaves that the children pinned together with twigs._

_Blast it all; he was far too easily distracted.  He could feel his cheeks coloring, more from his own thoughts than his lack of understanding, and Bilbo cleared his throat._

_“You make a choice and that’s it, decision final?”_

_“Presumably, you do not make such a decision until you’re certain you wish it to be final.”  There was a touch of humor to his voice, the hint of a turn to the lips Bilbo could glimpse behind the hair that had fallen a little in front of his face as he turned back to the fire.  “Commitment runs deep in our people.  We value loyalty, a love that endures.  Any lifebond we choose to undertake is only broken by an act other than death in the rarest of circumstances.  Is it so hard to understand?  You speak of dating but what is it, really, but a chance to know a person, so far as I understand it?  And can you not come to know a person without such an intent being stated from the first?  Can you not know the mind of a dear friend almost better than your own?  Physical needs can be sated anywhere there is sufficient drive and desire, without shame or reproach if both are free.  The joining of a bonded pair is another matter entirely.”_

_Said like that, Bilbo felt he could begin to understand.  There was sex and there was love, and there was love and **love** , of the kind that only seemed to come with painful rarity, to touch most lives only once.  He could remember the feel of nails on his back, the buffet of grass against his skin back home in Hobbiton, and still that moment was nothing on the memory of Thorin’s arms around him on the cliff side, a safety and warmth so strong he’d never imagined its equal.  When he thought of it like that, it didn’t seem strange or too much or too soon, it seemed instead that he’d lived a lifetime between the Shire and where he was, all his days divided into a ‘before’ and an ‘after’.  Yes, he could begin to understand.  With that much, it wasn’t hard to guess the rest.  He was a Hobbit, and whatever Thorin may feel for him, he could not take him home to Erebor, could not sit Bilbo at his side on a Dwarven throne.  Of course he couldn’t. _

_What could he say?  ‘It’s alright, I understand now, it’s just that I’m a hobbit, isn’t it?  It’s fine, of course it’s fine.’  It wasn’t, not really.  It might have been, before he’d let himself think on it too much, but he’d had days to wonder, and he woke with the ghosts of Thorin’s arms, and damn it all if his eyes weren’t burning.  He slowed his breath, drew one knee to his chest in an effort to collect himself a little.  He could do this, he could, he’d say-_

_“You understand, then.  It is as you said as we left the goblins- you have your home, and you go with us to regain ours.  It is more than I could ever ask that you share our road.  I could not presume so much as to ask you to stay.”_

_If he’d been standing, the shock might have taken Bilbo off his feet.  “But you would?”  He could see the question in the furrow of Thorin’s brow and he shuffled closer, putting his back to the fire until he knelt so close his knees almost brushed Thorin’s boots.  Cut off from the light behind him, Thorin’s face was thrown deeper into shadow.  “Ask me to stay I mean; that’s what you meant about what you’d ask if you had your choice?”_

_“If you would consider it, I would ask you more than that.  But how could I, in good conscience, when you-“_

_“What more would you ask?”  He didn’t mean to, really he didn’t, but he really **was** a Took too, after all, and they were so close again, and his fingers remembered the feel of Thorin’s cheeks, the soft plush fur on the shoulders of his cloak.  They weaved through it with ease, gripping tighter as he swayed just a little forward.  That grip would’ve been enough to catch him, but in that instant Thorin’s hands were there, too, bracing strong and tight against his hips.  No doubt, if Bilbo hadn’t been on his knees, they’d have revolted on him.  He took a steadying breath, took more than little pride in the way his voice trembled only a touch as he asked again, “What would you ask of me?” _

_Thorin’s eyes reached a blue that was almost black, a dark mirror.  Bilbo caught a glimpse of his own curls, a fleck of orange, a speck of the moon._

_“I would ask you to accept my oath, tell you that I would be honored to bind myself to you for all my days, and I would give you my word that when we reclaim the halls of my fathers, we will say our vows, and a chamber which was once holy will begin to be so again.”_

_It was on his tongue to say yes, to say yes before the tension coiling at the back of his neck drove him to lean forward and seek Thorin’s lips.  His mouth opened, and did neither._

_“Whatever I’d want to promise you, I can’t swear to all your days.  You’ll live centuries, yet.  Me, I’ll be lucky if I clear my first.”_

_“Any span would be an honor.”_

_“But I…I’m a hobbit, surely the people would want-“_

_“They will wish for their king to make his choice, nothing more.  Once they knew you, they would see you as I do; for my part I have no reservations, but how could I ever expect you to be at home in Erebor, when your life has been so full of sunlight and grass and kinder forests than our borders have ever possessed?  To take  you from such a life-“_

_“We could-“  The use of the word tripped him up, so new and weighted in his mouth, for all that it was welcome.  “I’d want to see the Shire again, someday, of course it’d have to wait, I know, but-“_

_“Your love for the Shire runs deep; it would be hard from you to be parted from your own land so long, even if-“_

_“You haven’t asked me anything, yet.”_

_The grip of Thorin’s hands lightened, just enough to be a steady pressure up as he slid them up from Bilbo’s waist, across his ribs.  Through his waistcoat, Bilbo could feel their heat, increased a moment in a slight squeeze before his right hand came up to tangle in Bilbo’s unruly hair.  Bilbo went still, his breath held fast.  This had to be as the last intake of breath a deer took when she looked up to see a ranger had her pinned in his sights, a first and last look at her own demise._

_“Will you accept my oath, Bilbo Baggins?  Will you have me at your side?”_

_How could it have come to this?  It was a simple good morning and an invasion and running out his door without a pocket handkerchief and before he knew it…_

_The road was a master, practiced at sleight of hand.  All along, he’d been coming here, to this place, to this moment, and he’d never known._

_“Yes.  Oh, yes.”_

_Thorin’s tug on his hair was hard enough that he lost he balance, light enough that it barely stung but with enough force to bring him sprawling against Thorin’s wide chest.  He could’ve fought for balance, could’ve pulled back long enough to right himself.  From his right Thorin’s arm snaked around his back, and Bilbo let himself be pulled.  Balance wasn’t necessary._

\---------

“You really never knew you had illegal inclinations before you came out the door with us?” 

Bilbo huffed, pulled the binoculars down from his eyes to take a glance at Bofur sprawled in his passenger seat.  Rather than elaborate he only smiled and popped another ranch coated fry into his mouth before wiping his fingers on his jeans. 

Bilbo grimaced.  “You didn’t have to come.  And use a napkin; I keep about a dozen in the glovebox.” 

“You’d think a few months on the road-“

“I could be on the road for decades and still not forget how to be clean.”  Out of the corner of his eye he could see Bofur reach for the handle, though the exaggerated sigh alone would’ve told him he won.  Most of the time, he did.  Bilbo lifted the binoculars to his eyes, disoriented again for a moment like he had been when he’d first peered through them.  The sudden change was jarring, and he blinked as he tried to get his bearings.

“As I am here, likely as not to get arrested for spying on the house of the young heirs to our local mining empire, you might at least tell me what we’re watching for.” 

“Told you; I want to know-“

“If they’re happy, you said that much, but what is it we’re looking for, Bilbo, hm?  What’s gonna give you that answer, short of talking to the boys and judging for yourself?” 

“Because what I need to know wouldn’t be helped by talking to them, not here, it’d…”  It’d do no good, no good at all, because in this culture, it was a battle to live openly with another man as your lover, much less as your husband.  If that lover happed to be your brother, the odds against you well exceeded ‘impossible’. 

Bilbo hadn’t spoken to Bofur again about the choice before him, but he _had_ given Bofur’s words a great deal of thought.  Where Thorin was concerned, he had to admit that deep down he’d known for quite some time that if Thorin had been asked if he wanted life under the terms of giving up both Bilbo and Erebor, he’d have refused.  The sticking point, however, (or perhaps merely Bilbo’s last desperate grasp for an excuse) lie with Fili and Kili.  Thorin had loved them like his own, had disciplined them and adored them with all the passion of a father.  If _they_ were happy here, if they had a good life…

For their sake, there was a chance even Thorin might have chosen this place. 

From there, Bilbo’s thoughts had muddied over the question of what precisely might constitute a ‘good’ life.  They had money, certainly, would inherit the company from Thorin eventually.  They were close with Ori and saw him often by all Bilbo could tell.  They hiked the Flatirons, and Kili occasionally injured himself fantastically riding dirtbikes.  If he’d known nothing of their history, there wouldn’t have been a question in Bilbo’s mind at all.  As with so much else in this world, his nagging problem lay not in what stood before his eyes but what he remembered. 

Bofur twisted in his seat, deposited the fries on the dash as he leaned back against the door handle.  “So this thing you need to know, it’s something they wouldn’t dare speak, but you think you’re going to catch a glimpse of it peeping through their blinds from a car two houses down?” 

 _Fuck it_.  Bilbo tossed the binoculars over his head into the backseat, simultaneously relieved and annoyed when they hit the seat with a soft bounce.  He shouldn’t have thrown them, those things were expensive.  Not to mention, he’d already been mulling over their uses in Thorin watching. 

“They were married, Bofur.  That’s not what your people call it, not really, but they were bound to each other.  They had been since the day Kili was deemed old enough to make the decision.”  Bilbo spoke with his eyes closed, head tipped back against the headrest.  There was something calming in the vibration, in the stretch of his throat and the shutting out of the light.  “I know it must be weird to you, with all your memories of here, but it wasn’t before, not to any of you.  They were brothers and they were lovers and neither condition ruled out the other.  They were utterly accepted, no pressure laid on them to marry outside their line even though they were princes of the line of Durin and might be needed for an heir.  It seems there’s…there’s provision in place for situations such as those, but I never did get to hear what those might be.” 

Thorin had been shifty on the topic, Balin even shiftier, and Bilbo could only assume that with all three descendants of Durin tied up in bonds incapable of producing a child, Thorin would be called upon to make an exception.  It was the only answer he could fathom, and one he’d tried hard not to dwell on before there was need.  Bofur was silent, the kind of quiet where Bilbo could feel him thinking.  He didn’t let Bofur get much farther. 

“You’re right, you know.  I’m grasping at straws.  They can’t ever belong here.  This, it’s a life but for them it’s…it’s no life.  Not as they’d want it.”  He’d been so sure it’d be alright at first, mired down in the secondhand memories he’d heard of how Kili fell first, how Fili was struck because he would not leave him, would not even let him go to take up arms.  Let the elves say what they would about their penchant to die of broken hearts, for all their rough exterior the dwarves grieved to no lesser depths. 

When they went to remove the bodies from the battlefield they had lain together still, Fili’s grip gone slack on Kili’s hand.  If he had not watched Thorin die, Bilbo was certain he could have never seen anything worse had he witnessed a hundred such battles.  He was sure, in the aftermath, that Fili most of all would have agreed with him, would have chosen Kili’s life over his own desires, but Kili himself was a proud one, bold often past the point of common sense, but good hearted all the same.  He’d have laid claim to his brother before all the world and let them say what they would, if it was only him at stake.  Here, they risked not only the volatile nature of public opinion, but laws ready and willing to take them down.  For the unforgivable crime of their love, they could be jailed up to 25 years; he’d checked.  For a dwarf it might have almost been worth it, but for a human to lose that span of his life for the sake of honesty, it would never be worth it, and they would never chose it.  They would hide, and someday they would die, their hands unclasped. 

Bilbo choked on a noise that might have a laugh, should have been a laugh.  He tried, at least. 

“When we get back, d’you think you’ll believe me again if I tell you all this happened?” 

Bofur’s hand settled against his shoulder, half patting before he squeezed lightly.  “Oh, I’ll have to.  You tell a good tale, Baggins.” 

“You’ll have to.  Because I don’t think I can face it alone.” 

\---------------

 

Monday night, Bilbo decided Tuesday afternoon seemed as good a time as any to go find himself a dog.  He text Bofur, a simple

_1:00?_

to which he answered

_2, and you pick me up at the store_

Bilbo nodded, his use of body language too engrained for him to have adjusted fully to a world of technology and sightless conversation, and he let the phone rest on his desk while he pulled up the humane society web page.  Initially, he assumed he’d run his finger down the page and pick at random, maybe let his finger still on a face that looked lost or a name that caught his eye, but the answer was actually a lot easier to find.  Halfway down the first screen and to the left, there was a Whiskey, a beagle mix, bigger than most beagles but certainly smaller than Mica.  He was eager, perched on a rock as if he gazed into the distance instead of at some bit of bacon behind the camera, and the liver spots splashed across his coat looked like he’d come to a skidding stop in very strange colored mud.  He was adorable, and a hound, and likely just right.  Maybe too right, really, because Bilbo could hardly help but smile at his face.  He hadn’t had a dog since he was a boy; it’d be a shame in a way to attach himself to this one only to lose him.  Still, there was nothing for it.  The park was his best road in.

Bilbo held his phone up to the screen, snapped a picture that came out only minimally fuzzed from the screen light and shot it off to Bofur with a simple caption of

_Yes?_

Minutes later, his phone rattled across the desk. 

_I’m tellin’ you for, that coondog of his, it’ll be love at first sight_

If nothing else, at least Bofur was keeping him laughing. 

\----------

The prospect of Friday was terrifying. 

The idea of actually approaching Thorin would’ve sparked fear enough, but now there was Whiskey to contend with too, a bright little spitfire who whirled through Bilbo’s apartment liked he’d only just been released from a catapult.  Before Bilbo had got the knack of moving things off the floor he’d gotten to five books, two shoes(each from a different pair), one bath towel, a pair of headphones, and his favorite dressing gown.  That one he kept, holes in the sleeve and all. 

At a park and off leash there’d be no controlling him, not yet.  For the time being he’d have to resign himself to being seen as the owner of ‘that dog’, chaotic as a pinball.  Perhaps Thorin’s patience for irritation had grown with his height. 

He fretted, soothed and coaxed and googled ‘how to make your dog come when he’s called’, and all the while in the back of his mind he knew it mattered only because this was the bit he could do something about.  This much he could plan for. 

He’d tried to plan for the rest, but he could only get so far as a handshake.  He was lost from there by the thought of Thorin’s hands, drawn back irresistibly to that other life, to rapid strokes under a cloak that covered them both, to the steady caress of a thumb against his pulse and the way Thorin had spread his fingers on the bars in Mirkwood to accommodate Bilbo’s seemingly nonexistent ones because they ached for touch but they could not be seen. 

He loved those hands the way he loved Thorin; wholly and ridiculously and to the point of pain.  The night Thorin had struck his oath, the night Bilbo counted as their first together, there’d been little clothing removed, no awkward fumbling of calloused fingers at his buttons.  There was only the hot press of Thorin’s body against his, the way Thorin spread his hands on Bilbo’s thighs and hauled him closer with such force that Bilbo could feel the claim he laid, as clear as if Thorin had taken him already. 

He’d stammered a yes under his breath before he’d caught up enough to realize there hadn’t been an actual question, and he’d felt for the first time Thorin’s chuckle as it rumbled against his neck, punctuated by a soft nip that devolved into a whisper.

_You took the watch, Mr. Baggins.  We have to keep it, whether you wish me to have you here or no._

So often they had that problem, on the road.  There was rarely any time.  That first night, he came with Thorin’s hands palming the swell of his ass, their hips working against each other, breath condensing in the cold around them as they gasped between kisses.  After Thorin had shuddered beneath him, after he’d sucked a slow mark just beneath Bilbo’s collar that hit such a knife edge between pleasure and pain that he’d almost cried out, Bilbo had slid down to curl against Thorin’s side, breathing deep of air thick with smoke of the pipe Thorin had finally lit. 

Half asleep, Thorin’s fingers meandering at an easy pace through his hair again and again, Bilbo had started as much as he was able, murmuring, _I didn’t-  I love you._

His only response was Thorin’s softest laugh, and a quiet admonition to sleep, while he could.  At the time, he’d been too far out to do more than drift off to the rhythmic rise and fall of Thorin’s chest, but when he’d worried later that he might not have said it after all, Thorin had told him he knew, that he’d known since Bilbo threw himself an orc three times his size with a sword he’d never been taught to use. 

So much of Bilbo’s life had been packed into those months, compressed and distilled, and how could he ever hope to speak to Thorin calmly after that?  How could he stand in a park and make small talk with the man who’d promised him undying devotion? 

Halfway through washing his dishes, Bilbo gave in and covered his eyes with one hand, grateful for the momentary respite from lights that seemed suddenly too bright.  Water ran in a slow rivulet down his thumb to trail across his cheek; he could hear the soft pop of the suds that stuck to his eyebrows. 

…and he could hear nothing else.  A quiet dog was never a good sign unless they were sleeping, or so Bombur had said.  Wiping his hands haphazardly on his jeans, Bilbo trotted out of the kitchen, calling for Whiskey all the way back to his room where he was greeted by the soft swish of tail on carpet.  Between his teeth Whiskey had the waistband of the boxers he’d pulled from the laundry basket, black and grey, made slimy and ripped in the ten minutes or so he must have had hold of them. 

Sighing, Bilbo dropped to his knees, at a loss to do more than ruffle Whiskey’s ears as a pulled his underwear free of curled front paws. 

“I’m not very good at looking out for you, am I?” 

Tail swishing, Whiskey tipped his head up to lick soap from Bilbo’s forehead.  


End file.
